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Voting Systems
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen many ways of voting throughout its near 60 years. To date, there have been 8 voting procedures, some dropped, some repeated. The 12-point system that is still used today was introduced in 1975. Luxembourg was the very first recipient of the "douze points", receiving it from the Netherlands. From 1975 to 1979, the points were read at random according to the performance order of the receiving country. From 1980 onward, the points were read in ascending numerical order to increase the excitement factor for the audience as to which country would get the 12 points. Starting in 2006, the spokesperson would only announce the top 3 scores of each country after 1- through 7-point scores were shown on the screen in order to slash a big percentage off the overall running time. The 2004 contest was the first time there would be a semi final at the Eurovision Song Contest, but this saw a slight change in the way of voting compared to previous years. For the first time, countries that did not qualify from the Semi Final would still be allowed to cast votes in the Grand Final. This resulted in Ukraine's Ruslana coming first with a record 280 points. If the voting had been the same as the voting conducted between 1956 and 2003, where only finalist countries could vote, then Serbia and Montenegro's Željko Joksimović would have won the 2004 contest with 190 points - with a 15-point lead over second place Ruslana, who would have scored 175 points. To date, non-qualifying countries are still allowed to vote in the Grand Final. With the introduction of two semifinals in 2008, a new method of selecting finalists was created. The top nine songs ranked by televote qualified, along with one song selected by the back-up juries. This method in most cases meant that the tenth song in the televote placing failed to qualify, and attracted some criticism, especially from Macedonia, who in both years placed 10th in the televote. In 2009, the qualifiers from the semfinals were selected the same way, however in the final a combination of juries and televotes decided the overall winner. That system was deemed extremely successful, so it carried over to the 2010 contest were it not only was used to determine the winner, but also the qualifiers from each of the two semifinals. 2016 to present In 2016, a new voting format was introduced. The professional juries and televoters from each country will each award a separate set of points from 1 to 8, 10 and 12. The procedure will go ahead as normal, with the spokespersons announcing the jury votes. The televotes will be counted and combined and announced by the hosts at the end of the show with the country with the fewest televotes being announced first, leading up to the eventual winner. This will create more excitement for the viewers. In 2019, a twist was created. All of the televotes would be counted and combined as usual, but would be awarded to countries in ascending order according to their placement in the jury vote. So, the country ranked last with the juries would receive their televote points first and so on going up the rankings, with the country ranked first receiving their points last. Split vote results are posted immediately following the completion of the grand final on the Eurovision Song Contest official site, and as of 2017 commentators now reveal how their country's public voted with the country's specific televote results shown on screen. Video Category:Eurovision Song Contest Category:Voting